Sometimes you may need to restart your instance of SQL Server. You should rarely do this on Production boxes, but in development or on your local desktop instance I restart my SQL Server instance fairly often. Here is the easiest way for those who like to use the GUI (graphical user interface).

NOTE: Do not test with this on your PRODUCTION server. J

What you’ll need to do is RIGHT CLICK on the instance of SQL Server. If you want to do the stop and start all together, you can choose the RESTART option as depicted in figure 1 labeled 1. If you want to STOP it and then START it, you should choose the option to STOP the service shown in 2.

Figure 1: Restarting the SQL Server Service

If you choose option 1 or 2, you will be prompted with something like shown in figure 2 below. The wording will be slightly different depending on which option you chose. Click Yes to restart, stop or start the SQL Server service.

Figure 2: Are you sure?

What these actions actually do behind the scenes is Restart, Stop or Start the SQL Server Service. If I chose to stop the service you would see something like that shown in figure 3 below when you open up the Services from within the Administrative Tools window or menu.

Figure 3: Services

The highlighted section is showing that the Status is blank, which means that it is not started. Upon starting the service back up (which could be done right here as well by clicking Start on the left), we will see that the status changes to Started.

And that’s all there is to it for restarting, stopping and starting a SQL Server instance using SQL Server Management Studio. In my next post, I’ll show you how to do this using a batch script that could then be scheduled or executed on demand.

Until next time, “keep your ear to the grindstone” – Good Will Hunting